Mother of Deals: Free Mobo w/ 7800GT - Really Worth It?

[CommodoreRed]

Maybe I'm desperate waiting for NC-17 eVGA card, but I also am building my first custom rig. Have everything decided but mobo... done heavy research into it, was deciding on Epox 9npa+ but, since I DO NOT plan on OCing, saw this deal:

Card: eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256-P2-N518

Mobo: eVGA 133-K8-NF41 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

With COD2 and free eVGA Mobo. (not worth it's 130 original price...) but deal price wise is too great. I checked reviews of the mobo itself, not too bad. Not great for OCing, but I don't intend on OCing. Seems a decent card not going into SLI (which its pesky about and I dont want to use anyways) just wondering if this is a good deal (with using the mobo)? Or just dreaming... (not the BEST mobo obviously, layout isn't bad, every board has some layout issue, doesnt look terrible either. Seems decent enough for non OCers. And free with 7800GT...

Please need comments/suggestions/input. Want order next few days and finish my custom build!!! =)

(yes have similar post in nvidia thread, this is more Mobo sided part)

 

[Crashman]

Great video card, great motherboard. In fact, that's my main motherboard for testing other parts right now.

 

[ShortyNumber45]

that would be a great combo.

 

[phonicsmonkey]

I got this deal for myself over Christmas. Runs everything great. You won't be disappointed.

 

[BigFellor]

Dont do it. I thought the same thing. Got the combo deal, and the mobo is complete garbage. Will NOT boot up, I get to the screen where it says "Press del to enter setup" and it refuses to recognize any keyboard I try, so I cant do anything. This was the issue on TWO boards. Yes, I tried PS2 and USB kayboards, yes I swapped out memory, no dice. Save your money.

 

[Crashman]

BigFellow is indeed an idiot. A true idiot, telling people "Don't do it", as in "DON'T ACCEPT A FREE MOTHERBOARD". Futher proving his idiocy he claims that a free board is a wast of money!

And then to prove he's completely clueless, he was unable to get his system to boot up. Now there's a possibility that the first board was defective, but that would be a 1 in 1000 chance. Having two boards in a row come up defective is practically impossible in this case. So the fact that neither board would boot proves that he doesn't know how to assemble a system, and blames the part rather than himself.

So now we have a clueless idiot telling people not to get a free product because it's a waste of money. Excellent. If anyone else is this stupid and can't get their boards to work, keep the card and give me the board.

I can use all the free "eVGA junk motherboards" I can get. I'll put these "non-functional" boards in systems, fire them up, show them off, and sell them.

Thanks for your consideration!

 

[russell]

I was thinking basically the same thing.
Except perhaps I might have put it a little milder.

It immediately came to mind that with all the recommendations to go for it and one guy who couldn't get two boards to boot against it , definitely would you change my mind.

Another thing , you have proved you give good advice.

You helped me on my first post here concerning an old AMD system.
I remember one person said the CPU and motherboard combination wouldn't work , but you, Ned and P. H. helped me and together we got it up and running and even over clocked slightly.

 

[aceprowler]

Hey, I was going to get this card in a few weaks, thanks for showing me this card and mobo combo.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102579

But I still thinking of going with 512 memory though, not 256, only because I'm a serious gamer. But you may not be. Good luck, and thanks for the post.

 

[BigFellor]

Crashman, check your PMs, and if you know something that EVGA doesnt, I'd love to hear it to get this thing working.

 

[Crashman]

I have the same board, no problems. In fact, I have the same board with the cheaper chipset, and I modified the chipset to support SLI, making it the same board, and even with the chipset mod I still don't have problems. We have about half a dozen users of the free SLI board, they didn't need to modify their to enable SLI, and they don't have problems.

Since you can't seem to get any keyboards to work, the first thing I'd try is putting the board on a non-conductive surface, such as a phone book, to make sure it's not shorted on the back side.

BTW, I called you an idiot for saying a free motherboard cost too much money, I called you clueless for not figuring out what you did to cause the problem.

If I were in your position I'd take it to a shop and have them figure it out. For around $50 they'll fix it and tell you what the problem was, that's cheaper than one credit hour at a college!